How effective is the combination of your main product and

ancillary texts?

The Task

• For my A2 media coursework, my group and I chose to create a horror film teaser trailer. This also meant following the ancillary tasks which were creating individual posters for the film and individual magazine front covers about the film. We’ve had to create a group blog and personal blogs to show our work and advancements.

The Trailer

• Our main product is a horror films teaser trailer; It is about a couple who are attacked in their quite suburban home by a hooded attacker. The trailer’s key highlights are the opening shot of the quiet suburban home, the highlighted date on an email and the girl Alex being trying to escape into a shed whilst the attacker bears down on her. There’s also a flash of light which shows the attacker and when the audience believe the trailers over, Alex finds her phone by a note, it then shows the phone’s camera footage of the guy Dean bound and gagged.

The Magazine

• The main background of the magazine is of the first shot of the trailer; the quiet, peaceful suburban home with the totally contrasting image of a close up of the killer with his face blacked out.

• Furthermore, the main article of the magazine is a feature on the film Deadline.

• And also the magazine issue is a horror special in honour of the new film out; it’s cover lines advertise James Cameron’s new horror, the Slasher subgenre is explored and it has Baker’s big screen big screams; which would be a selection of the top horror film moments and the films they come from which cause the biggest screams.

• The banner of the magazine clearly states that the issue is a horror special and so it has a prize of a trip to the London dungeons.

• The bar at the bottom advertises a 20 page Hancock horror special; because he’s the king of suspense horror films.

The Poster• The main background of the poster is just black. I did this to

allow the images I put on top to be really standout. The main image is of the killer and I changed it’s gradient to allow it to blend into the darkness and become more demonic. The other images are of the victims; Alex is on the right and I edited her gradient to make it seem like there’s a single source of light on her as if someone (the killer) has caught her with their torch. Her scream and the light work together to create an image of innocence and pure fear. On the right is Dean, I chose a shot of when he is tied up and beaten to go against the idea of the masculine character being strong and the hero as he is shown defeated and weak. I changed the gradient of the image to a dark grey to emphasize the idea of him being dead or captured.

• The title is written in the Face Your Fears font as looks hand written and it reminded me of the blood smeared message left by the killer. I used a dark blood red to emphasize the idea that it’s written in the victims blood.

• I used the tag lines “Their time ran out” and “Could you make it?” to suggest that the victims on the poster couldn’t escape the attacker in the middle, that he gave them a ‘Deadline’ to do something or escape and they failed. The “Could you make it?” is a rhetorical question to pull in the audience.

How do the three texts link together?

• My texts link together through a number of ways. Firstly they all focus on the same characters; the trailer focuses on Alex, Dean and the killer, the magazine focuses on the killer and the post focuses on Alex, Dean and the killer.

How do the three texts link together?

• Furthermore, both the magazine and the trailer show the quiet suburban home to emphasize the calmness and peaceful nature of the scenario and the victims to totally contrast with the chaos of the killer.

How do the three texts link together?

• Both the magazine and the poster use images of the killer in the very middle. This is to totally take the audiences attention and be the focal point as he is in the film. In both he has his face blacked out, this adds to the demonic, evil feel that he gives himself with his brutal attacks.

How do the three texts link together?

• All three of the texts use darkness to emphasize the horror. The darkness is where the attacker hides in the trailer; outside at night, on the stairs in the dark. In the magazine he is outside in the dark against the bright house and in the poster he is on a black background which he blends into.

This shot is taken from the attacker’s point of view as he slowly walks up to Alex whilst she tries to escape

How do the three texts link together?

• Another way in which the texts link together is that they all use the same colour text. In the trailer; the email received by Alex, “Coming Soon” and “13.05.11” are all in a blood red. The cover lines on the magazine are in a blood red and the title, tag lines and dates are all blood red on the poster. This is because the attacker’s weapon is a knife and the suggests the blood red is the blood of his victims. Red is also a very suggestive colour and could represent the passion/romance of the kill or the blood of the victims.

Their synergy

• I think that the three texts work really well together to create an end result of a professional horror movies promotion pieces.

Their synergy

• The teaser trailer fulfills it requirements of giving a sneak preview of a movie by showing scenes which give a vague yet captivating feel of the whole film. It follows conventions of horror film teaser trailers by showing the key characters including the killer, it has a lot of suspenseful moments in it, its very dark and is scary. All this effectively combines with the other texts to further publicise the film.

This shot is from when Alex is trying to unlock the shed door to escape but her hands are covered in blood and the attackers getting close. This is one of the most suspenseful and scary moments of the trailer and our feedback of it was very positive

Their synergy• As shown early in on my blog in my research there were key

conventions for my poster which I kept to. I also made it so that it created the overall synergy of a proper horror movie.

• The poster built on what the trailer showed by having the attacker in the middle with his knife, the screaming image of Alex (she screams a lot in the trailer) and the tied up and beaten image of Dean (from the end clip of the trailer). It advertised the date of release as the trailer did and tries to pull in viewers by using the tag lines “Their time ran out” “Could you make it?”. All this effectively combines with the other texts to further publicise the film to a wider audience who may see this during the day and it would really capture their interest straight away and would definitely expand the films publicity

Their synergy• The film is the magazine’s cover feature; this instantly

brings it to the readers attention. Firstly it does this by using the title and tag line “Could you make it?”; I chose this tag line over the other because as a rhetorical question it grabs the readers attention more by including them and makes them wonder what the film is about, what is that they’d have to survive?

• I also used a quote about the film as a cover line. The quote reads “ You’ll never open your inbox again, let alone your door!”. This is supposedly is from someone who has seen the film and implies that it has something to do about emails and that it’s so scary that the watchers would be so frightened that they wouldn’t be able to check their own emails incase it happens to them and that they definitely wont be able to open the door to anyone in case they’re also attacked.

• The image is a close up of the attacker with his face blacked out against the backdrop of the quiet suburban home. All this very effectively combines with the other texts to further publicise the film to a wider audience.

Stanley Cohen• I really liked Stanley Cohen’s Folk Devils and Moral Panics theory. It

made me think about how the media perceives dangers to society and not only highlights them but amplifies them. One such danger which has been highlighted in recent years are ‘hoodies’, especially by Conservative papers like the Daily Mail. So I thought it would be interesting to play on this amplified fear and make the attacker a hooded youth. To personify the amplification that the media creates for society, the hooded youth would have his face blacked out (as all hooded youth are seen to be faceless terrors), this is also done in F. This helped create more of a demon than a youth, one who blended into the darkness and attacked from it like a nightmare. For me, the suburban home we used illustrated the middle class who, because of media like the Daily Mail, fear and isolate today's youth- in particular any youth wearing a hood (which ironically isn't that particular).

• I feel that all my texts combine together to not only build on Cohen’s idea of a folk devil but turn him into a real devil.

Improvements

• I feel there could be improvements because I was the main editor of the trailer and this meant I had a restricted time allowance for the other pieces.

• I would have liked to maybe tried to find even better images of all three characters. I do like the one’s I have used and I think they do the job well but if I had time I would have liked another shoot to maybe perfect them.

• I would also have liked to have been able to put a couple more shots of the killer in the trailer but the one’s we had weren’t a high enough quality and so were left out.

• On the whole, however, I really like all three of my texts and I feel that they really do effectively combine.